Devitte: Is MLL Really a Midfielders' League?

Major League Lacrosse has existed for over 10 years now. It has been labeled everything from a glorified beer league to the best example of how lacrosse should be played. In all of that time a two ideas have been reiterated and repeated to the point of cliché: The MLL is a midfielders' League and MLL is a veterans’ league. To be fair those statements weren’t made off the cuff; they have their roots in truth. We are going to cover the former today. Why?

Chesapeake’s horrible start has been extremely surprising; not because they are the defending MLL champions, but because they made several proactive roster moves to address their aging offensive core. The king makers sent away John GrantJr. and Casey Powell, but they brought in Brendan Mundorf, Joe Walters, Peet Poillon and Stephen Peyser to fill that void. Why did they do that? Well, if you discount the notion that Chesapeake was “hoarding” midfielders to prevent other teams from playing with dangerous toys, you can see that Chesapeake was trying to build the perfect midfield unit to complement one of the steadiest and prolific attack lines of the last 6-7 years. It hasn’t worked. The Bayhawks have just one win this season and have been uncharacteristically dominated in a handful of games to boot. Sure they have had to overcome injuries and they tend to bury themselves in a pit of injudicious penalties, but how does that collection of midfielders…lose? If you think it’s just the Bayhawks that are struggling, think again. Midfielders are not the point factories that they once were and teams are struggling to fill the void.

I would posit that the first six games of this season have provided ample evidence to challenge — if not refute — the notion that MLL is still a midfielders league. Put on your snorkel and grab your speargun, we are about to dive deep and try to figure it out.

Let’s start by defining the position and the reasoning behind this notion. Obviously midfielders are integral to any and all iterations of the game of lacrosse. If you didn’t have midfielders you would have three attackmen and three defensemen on either side of the field trying all manner of gesticulating and/or witchcraft to will the ball to their possession. Lacrosse is a midfielders' game because the midfielder goes everywhere. FOGOs may not be people, but they are midfielders after all. How about the guys on the wing? D-mids? LSMs? No, I think we all know that the star of all midfielders is the Offensive midfielder. Groundballs are great, points are better. So with that in mind let’s take a look at where the goals in MLL actually come from this year.

There have been 24 games played through six weeks in the 2014 MLL season. A total of 543 goals have been scored, of those 543 goals, 17 have been 2-pointers, so we can add 17 to the goal total to account for the points accrued and we have a new total of 560. If we divide 560 we can figure out the average number of the combined total goals scored by both teams in a game and we get 23.33. So if you’re watching, say, this past weekend’s Rochester vs. Chesapeake game you can safely say that the game was far below average and not be wrong – let’s be real that was the worst game of the season. I don’t care if it went to double OT it was AWFUL. And yes, there is a direct correlation between goals scored and enjoyment of fans – why do you think Americans hate soccer and Canadians play hockey?

So we have a baseline of 23.33 goals a game as a measure of relativity against goal totals from attackmen, midfielders and what we will call miscellaneous other goal scorers. Or, like, longpoles. Whatever. What about assists? I’m glad you asked. Of the 543 physical goals scored, just 268 were assisted. Hmm. Seem low? It is. The two teams with the highest number of assists? Denver (45) and Ohio (41). The two teams with the lowest amount? Charlotte (21) and New York (23).

The title fight looms: attack vs. midfield. Who scores more goals? More points?

I know; this is where we should have a talk about those guys that play both. Someone like Matt Danowski is a natural attackman, but Charlotte will bring him out of the box in the 6-on-6 set to get a match up, and will do so more frequently than they will start him down low. What is he classified as? Well, he’s an attackman. He may sweep all the way around the goal, carry the ball to the end of time, and run out of the box, but he is an attackman. That’s his natural position. I feel comfortable classifying guys like that because I have seen all of their games and while their tendencies may be towards attacking from the top down, they’re not middies.

Some quick off-the-cuff classifications for reference: Ned Crotty, attack; Kevin Buchanan, midfield; Peter Baum, midfield; Joe Walters, midfield; Casey Powell, attack; Jordan MacIntosh, midfield. I have an entire list — I didn’t skew it towards either side of the median; I just made a judgment call if it needed to be made. If we don’t have trust what do we have, dear reader?

Yes, Kyle, but there are more midfielders than attackmen, how does one account for the numerical attrition of less contributing midfielders? I’m glad you asked. I took an equal sample from each team of the top four scoring attackmen vs. the top four scoring midfielders. Why four attackmen? Several teams have used different attack line ups due to rookies and NLL players coming in later than expected due to their previous team’s progression in the post season of their respective organizations (Mostly Charlotte and Rochester) or they have a heavy rotation in the midfield and have dressed numerous players just one or two times (Chesapeake). Four is fair for both midfielders and attackman. And it eliminates the D-mids. Mo D-mids, Mo Problems. Or, at least it was supposed to. See also the fun use of Asterisks at the end. That’s me seething. Literarily. Not literally. There’s a difference.

Seriously Charlotte? Your second leading scorer from the midfield is a longpole that has played in four games? Your fourth highest scoring midfielder is a D-mid? For shame, Charlotte. For shame. I blame the skews on your abhorrent transition play (Denver game aside – which was pretty impressive which makes all of the other games you have played this season even more depressing). I know; you could make a case that Sawyer has played more midfield, but you could also say that Matt Mackrides is a natural midfielder forced to play attack more than occasionally. I think both of them have been victimized by staying on in transition and have had their best games at attack playing off of their teammates and not just getting switches by running out of the box.

Those controversies aside, (and the fact that I omitted Curtis Dickson and Jim Connolly from consideration because they’ve only played one game – two drink minimum, folks) the point totals are not that surprising. The best team in the league (Denver) has nearly equal goal distribution between their attack and midfield (33 and 31) and we already established that less than half of the goals scored in the MLL so far have been assisted (543 divided by two is 271.5; the total number of assists in the league is 268) so what else do these numbers tell us about where goals come from?

Going team by team it’s pretty obvious that teams are focusing on getting their points by catering to their marquee — or star — players. Boston has a starting midfield of Rabil, Buchanan, and Berger. More importantly they play a slower 6-on-6 style and run the ball through their midfielders. Picks, slips, sweeps — the ball runs from the two-ball stripe down to GLE and comes right back. Conversely, Ohio plays a much faster style and has a ton of goals from both sides of the ball – there is no shortage of initiators in blue and gray. Styles make fights and the Cannons and the Machine were responsible for the best tilt of the season so far this past weekend when they blew up for 33 combined goals. The Cannons won the game, but the Machine were as impressive in defeat as any team could be. Those are two teams that rise and fall with their offensive midfield unit.

Conversely, look at Florida and New York’s attack numbers. Casey Powell is a one-man statistical anomaly, but he’s doing his best work in the league in years primarily from behind the cage. New York has the twin terrors of Pannell and Crotty — who both do their best work driving and feeding from X. Powell is playing with Kevin Crowley — the reigning MLL offensive player of the year and MVP. Pannell and Crotty are playing with Max Seibald, Matt Striebel and JoJo Marasco. So why are the offenses of those teams tilted towards the attack? It all begins — and ends — with who starts the actual attack on the net.

The Launch have played a Jekyl and Hyde brand of transition ball; one game they look like the Harlem Globetrotters and the next game they look like they’re passing to the ball boys on the end line. Crowley isn’t a huge transition threat, he’s more of a running out of the box, and cutting off ball sort of chap. The rest of the Launch midfield is made up of different kinds of players, Jordan Hall can sweep with the best of them, Josh Amidon is a streaky long range bomber that makes simple plays look great, but they lack that truly dynamic dodger. It makes sense that the Launch run through Powell – they have to run through Powell, when they don’t they look hopeless like they did in the Rochester game a few weeks back.

The Lizards have has a different brand of difficulties and successes with their offense, but it hasn’t been for a lack of midfield dynamism. I don’t know if Max Seibald is still — or ever was — the most complete midfielder in MLL. (Who is then? That would be Jay Jalbert for those scoring at home.) But I’ll tell you what; he’s certainly one of the most entertaining players in the league to watch when he has the ball. Have you ever seen that police chase video where they’re going after someone that is towing a monster double wide trailer and all of a sudden the thing unhinges and crashes through an embankment of trees? Seibald is the double wide trailer and the defense is the trees. Except this year has hasn’t had the chance to really take it to the forest. Seibald is second on the team in shots (40) but do you know who is first? Rob Pannell with an astonishing 56 attempts. How high is that? It leads the league. By eight. Pannell has taken eight more shots than Paul Rabil, 14 more shots than Drew Snider and 15 more shots than Peter Baum. New York’s focus is clear — get the ball into Pannell’s hands.

So where does that leave us? Six weeks into the 2014 MLL season, the four leading scorers from each team have been responsible for more than 452 goals. Here is the split.

Goals

Attack 223 goals

Midfield 229 goals

Assists

Attack: 143

Midfield: 85

Points (2-pointers included)

Attack: 367

Midfield: 323

Did you think it would be that close? I’ll be honest, going into this undertaking I was convinced — absolutely convinced — that the attack would outscore the midfield.

The assists put the attack over the top, but attackmen — by nature — will have more assists than midfielders in lacrosse. The points title goes to the attackmen — by the slimmest of margins still belong to the midfield. So is the MLL a midfielders' league? Only if your midfielders are your star players, and even then wins aren’t guaranteed